A Tibetan Way Toward

Religious Understanding

On
January 16, 2014, Professor Alejandro Chaoul spoke at the Asia Society Texas
Center to a crowd of one hundred community members about a Tibetan way of understanding
that could be applied to inter-faith and intra-faith dialogue. Chaoul, who received his PhD in Tibetan
religions at Rice University, is currently an Assistant Professor at the
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Integrative Medicine Program.
He has also studied Tibetan Bon, the native tradition of Tibet—and Buddhist practices
in India, Nepal, and the United States.
His presentation focused on his research and book on Chӧd, a meditation technique that these
traditions practice, where practitioners visualize cutting their body, fashioning
a bowl from a portion of their skull, and offering it as a feast to enlightened
beings. Accompanied by melody and
chanting, this meditative practice is used to confront fear and the attachment to
one’s identity symbolized by the ‘cutting’ of one’s body. In other words, cutting through one’s ego and
moving closer towards enlightenment.

At
a glance, Chӧd presents a paradox:
how can the Buddhist tradition, with its emphasis on nonviolence and peace, be
negotiated with Chӧd, a practice that
includes meditating on the violent dismemberment of one’s own body? Chaoul acknowledges that while Chӧd is indeed gruesome, it is not
violent because it only involves visualizing these actions. In other words, this practice does not
conflict with the central beliefs of Buddhism—love, compassion, sympathy, and patience. Not only is there no tension between this
practice and the faith tradition in which it is embedded, Chӧd, which literally means to ‘cut’, is actually a means by which
to attain these ideals. Moreover, generosity is a central feature of Chӧd, as you offer what is most valuable
to you (your identity), by cutting the attachment to its main holder/sustainer
(your body).

Using
Chӧd’s meaning of cutting, Chaoul
states that religious tolerance can be enhanced from an understanding that comes
from breaking down boundaries—whether those boundaries are limits of one’s body
and mind, or factions between and within religious groups. For example, looking
at the relationship between Bon and Buddhism in Tibet, the practice of Chӧd can be used as a lens through which
religious tolerance can be addressed more broadly. Among the purportedly tens
of thousands of different meditative techniques within the Bon and Buddhist traditions,
Chӧd conceptualizes a way to cut
across the differences within these perspectives and focus instead on unity underlying
them all, and it is said to be a ‘jet plane to enlightenment.’ In closing, and responding to a question from
the audience, Chaoul made a point to state that all religions, not just Tibetan
Buddhism and Bon, present themes of peace that can serve as a foundation for
tolerance. Fostering tolerance between and within faith traditions requires
that we break free of the limitations we impose as we relate to our enemies
(external and internal) and ourselves. In the last slide of the presentation, His
Holiness the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of all Tibetan Buddhists, including
Bon, is quoted as saying “in the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best
teacher.”

The Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance